AI UK: discussing the role and impact of science journalism

Hosted by the Alan Turing Institute, AI UK is a two day conference that showcases artificial intelligence and data science research, development, and policy in the UK. This year, the event took place on 21 and 22 March, and the theme was the use of data science and AI to solve real-world challenges. Given AIhub's mission to connect the AI community to the general public, and to report the breadth of AI research without the hype, the panel session on science journalism particularly piqued my interest. Chaired by science journalist Anjana Ahuja, "Impacting technology through quality science journalism" drew on the opinions of Research Fellow Mhairi Aitken, science reporter Melissa Heikkilä, and writer, presenter and comedian Timandra Harkness. The speakers talked about the role that journalism has to play in understanding AI systems and their implementation in wider society.